- All right, this is Ask GMBN.
Blake, what do we do here?
- We answer all the questions that you've been sending
in to us, in the comments down below and ask@gmbn.com
- Well, not all of them but some of them.
- Some of them, we try to.
- Right, let's kick it off.
- Stephen Daniels: is the softer compound on a tyre worth
the extra money for someone on a budget?
- On a budget?
I wouldn't say. No.
- I would, I disagree.
- Why, they're expensive.
- Well because a tire's not actually not
that expensive, even if you go crazy.
- Their quite expensive.
- No, for what you get out of a really good compound tyre.
It's worth it, I'd say,
and it really transforms how your bike feels.
You'd be so surprised with the difference a good tyre makes.
- I get all of that but then you're spending money
on a soft compound tyre and you're on a budget
it's not gonna last that long.
You're gonna have to buy another one.
- They also roll a bit slower.
- There you go.
- Yeah, but learning what a tyre can do
for your bike is worth it.
- My advice, should I give them my advice?
- Well I think you're advice on this subject
is probably worth more than both of ours.
- Stick with one on the front
because then you get the benefits of the grip
because the back one doesn't matter quite so much
and it'll roll faster.
Plus you can do more skids.
- That guy.
- He's got it.
You've done racing before?
- Yeah.
- Fazeel Anjum has got a Fox DHX 5.0 Rear Shock.
What does the boostvalve do on it?
He searched it up but he can't find out.
But we guys are OG and you da best.
Can we help?
- I reckon we can.
Bang for buck aint it?
Pop! It gives you a...
- Give you better--
- I dunno about that.
I'm not sure on this but I think,
if my memory serves me correctly,
it's all about ramping up the shocks.
So the more air you're putting into that boostvalve
the quicker your shock will ramp up
the harder it will get sooner.
I think.
I used to have on my old Santa Cruz V10.
Should also wind in the cap as well.
- It sounds like the buckaroo buttons to me now.
That's what it sounds like.
- It sounds like, kinda poink.
- Yeah.
- In fact, I think that's what a boostvalve was.
You just wind the shock in.
Yeah, the cap.
MTB Life: I've been learning to revert out of a fakie
but still can't quite do it.
Do you have any tips to improve?
- Yeah, I've got a good one.
Common mistake when you're doing anything fakie
is to try and race ahead of the roll on your rear cassette
because you're obviously going backwards
and your peddling backwards so the bike will roll.
And there is a tendency to try and spin it backwards quicker
but if you just try and stay just ahead of the cassette,
gives you much more time, slows down all the movement,
let's you time your hop.
- Keep a bit of pressure on the peddles?
- No, not pressure.
Stay just ahead of it.
That's the bit to practise is the peddling backwards.
Rather than trying to spin your wheel back
and trying to fit a hop in.
So that might be worth trying.
- Tom Scholfield: do you share your workshop with GCN?
If so, you should try and leave something GMBN
in the background and troll their channel.
Yes we do.
- Should we stick the rat somewhere?
- Let's put the rat in.
Let's put the rat in the GCN show.
- We'll stick him in.
- Let's do that, right. It's our secret.
And this is not our idea it's Toms.
Say Tom, the rat's going in the GCN show.
Have a look out for it.
See if you can spot it.
We'll put it in there.
- Robb Bluett has got a question about cornering.
It says he's starting to ride faster and more aggressively
but he finds he's washing out the front wheel a lot,
especially when leaning the bike in tighter
on high speed manoeuvres.
Do you think this is a bike set up problem
with regards to weight distribution
or purely body position and technique?
- Well, you wanna get the old soft compound tyre
on the front.
- I've had bikes before where I find
I do wash out the front tyre.
So, it can be down to bike set up.
Trying to get the bar height and your suspension set
so you're pretty much equal weight on front and rear.
It could also be technique.
It's hard to say.
- It's quite interesting,
because you're not totally sold
on the old really gentle front angle
and front end being a little far away.
You like being up on top of your front wheel.
- I don't like the longer bikes.
You always see longer bikes with short stems.
I find I wash the front wheel on those.
- And do you feel that's because you're
not getting the weight on the front wheel
because of the slack end there?
- Well, I've said this to people and they've said,
well, you've just gotta change the way you ride
and get more weight on it.
But I don't want to change the way I ride.
I've done it for 20 years.
Too late.
- Too late, old dog.
Yeah, it's tricky.
- All right, we have got a video
on how to ride corners fast.
So check that out.
Riding corners fast on a mountain bike
can be quite hard, a little bit risky,
but it is a lot of fun when you nail it.
So, this is how to ride corners fast.
(energetic music)
An interesting question here from Nigel Randtoul.
Says he read in an American magazine
that when transporting your bike
on a tow hitched mounted bike rack,
your car exhaust can contaminate your disc brakes and pads.
What's your view?
- My view?
Do you wanna know the technical view of my view?
- Go on.
- Well, I think his car's burning a bit too rich
and all the fuels coming out.
All this oil and this exhaust fumes contaminating his discs.
- I don't reckon you know.
- Or, his bike is super low
and why is it firing onto his discs?
- It's gotta be possible, isn't it?
- Sounds realistic.
I've heard of people melting their carbon rims
with their bikes on the back
and the exhaust fumes melting their rims.
- Does that mean his bike is set way lower than his bumper?
- Well, maybe the pipe.
Maybe he's got one of those pipes that comes up and out.
- Comes up and sticks out like a swan.
- I mean it's gotta be possible.
- It is quite yeah.
I think road contaminants, especially if you have a wet day
and all the oil and grim on the roads flicking up.
- That's true, if you think, the water splashing up
from the road could have all sorts of contaminants.
- I think it depends on your car.
- Yeah, if you have an old school carburetors
then it's definitely gonna stick out some fuel on there.
Isn't it?
- Carburetors?
- Yeah, carburetors.
(laughing)
- How old's your car?
It'd have to be pretty old.
- That is pretty old.
- Anyway, that's a different subject really.
Der Crankmeister: what is Doddy's real name?
- Igor
- I don't know. Is it Igor?
- His name's Igor Rastavnikoff,
but he pronounces it Igor.
We don't know why he pronounces it Igor.
- I did not know that.
- I didn't know.
He keeps it quiet.
- He does watch Young Frankenstein.
- He does that.
- Tim_LSC: can you use old spokes again for new rim?
- Depends on the hub doesn't it?
- If you're keeping the same hub and putting new rim.
It depends, if you're getting a new rim, possible.
Different rim--
- Could be length spokes.
- The rim could be a different shape.
It could be deep of course obviously not gonna work.
Also, spokes do stretch.
- They do stretch.
- So, it depends how old the spokes are.
I've definitely done it before.
- But getting a set of spokes is not that expensive, is it?
- Well, it depends--
- Depends what spokes they are.
But if you're changing the hub
then it's very unlikely it's all gonna line up.
I remember watching an old BMX video once,
and it had Dave Mirra in there showing
how to just take a rim off, like,
and then just lace it straight back in.
Your hub and your spokes straight back into a new rim.
- I've done it.
- Yeah, I've done it.
- Could definitely work.
- You can do it.
- Manuel Kuhn: I want to begin dirt jumping
but I don't have any spots anywhere near my home.
What can I do?
- The best way is to build your own jumps.
If you're gonna start doing it, build your own jumps.
- That's a big part of learning to jump,
is understanding the jumps.
No better way to find out than actually building one.
You could also, online, buy a few different
ready made jumps, now.
There's those little wooden, they come in little sections,
I forget the name of them now.
But they're like a...
Like flat pack.
Flat pack jump.
- An Ikea flat pack jump.
- Ikea, that's where you can get them.
You can't get them in (crosstalk)
It's that kind of idea.
So, am I an expert on mountain biking?
No.
(laughing)
You can buy jumps.
- Or just go on YouTube.
- Of course, you can buy little plastic ramps, as well.
- You could buy a spade.
- Let's go with a spade, shall we?
- They're good with mud.
Dig up your mum's plants.
Don't do that.
- Don't do that.
- It does look nice if you put a plant
on either edge of the table though.
- Sam Puttipap: do you guys prefer frame-only
and then build up custom bike or buying a complete bike?
- Well, I like doing it custom-built.
But then you are restricted to, you know,
if you're on a budget, you buy bits now.
Then a week later you get this.
Then you get paid, then you buy that.
Takes a while.
But you do get to know your bike a lot better.
- Takes time to build it up as well, doesn't it?
Actually, I think I'm the other way now.
Used to like doing that.
But now, I like getting a complete bike
so you just set it up and you go.
But, also, they can be a little bit cheaper
because the parts were almost subsidised
by the actual bike company, so you get better stuff
on your bike for the price, sometimes.
Next question.
Keevzy: what form of education did you guys
choose to follow: college, university, etc.?
That's an interesting question.
- I went to college.
- You went to college?
I went to the university of life.
- There you go.
- I'm afraid, yeah, school was not my strong point.
No.
- You knew?
- I've did a lot of school.
I got three A stars, seven As, two Bs.
Something like that.
And I then I went to college.
And then I went to Uni and dropped out
to become a mountain bike rider.
- Yes, I did the same thing.
- Can we get to the next question?
(laughing)
- Harvey Calliey: where is the best place to ride
on the Isle of Wight?
- A place called Cheverton Farm.
That's the place to go and ride.
But it's shut in the winter.
Which is a bit annoying.
- Yeah, that sounds difficult.
Is it a public place?
Can you get in rides?
- Yeah, you can ride. It's a bike park.
It's getting revamped.
So, if you don't know where the Isle of Wight is
that is on the south coast of England.
Tiny little island and I live there.
And there's some good riding.
- You can only just fit you on it.
- Yeah, it's really small.
It's, like this big.
My big toe just sits on it.
I can sit on the beach and put my toe on it.
Does that mean I live there?
- Regan Freerun: if you go tubeless,
do you have to replace the sealant every so often?
- Yeah, actually, I don't know.
Do you have to?
- It goes off after a while.
It sort of--
- How long's a while?
- congeals into a ball.
I dunno. It depends on the conditions where you live.
Hot or whatever.
I would say, in the UK,
probably last the best part of a year.
Then you get a bit of a ball of stuff in there.
- Do you literally start to hear that?
- You can if you take the wheel out and rattle it,
you'll hear something.
But, dries it out and you don't even really notice but...
- I am new to tubeless.
- Yeah, I'm a tubeless virgin.
I don't know much about it.
- Doddy has done a video on top five mistakes
you're gonna make when you go tubeless.
Don't make them.
- That was pretty good actually.
- Setting up your tyres up tubeless on a mountain bike
has a lot of benefits when you're riding on a trail.
But it doesn't always go to plan
when you're getting them set up in the first place.
So, with that in mind, we're gonna take you through
some of the things that go wrong
when you set your tubeless tyres up.
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
- It's time for the quick fire round.
Neil, go for it.
- All right.
Dave Zimmermann: what are the most stylish tricks
on a mountain bike?
- Table.
Whip.
- X-up.
- What? No.
- Table top.
- And whip.
- And whip, same thing.
- X-up.
- No. - No.
Next question.
- James Chernega: how do you make
the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
- You get bread, peanut butter, jelly.
That's it.
There isn't really much to it.
- Sounds disgusting.
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are--
- Sandwiches should be cheese or something like that.
- No.
- Cheese, what? And tomato.
- Peanut butter and jelly's lovely.
- Ames Carl: are Nukeproof bikes really nuke proof?
- Don't know.
- They're actually, not.
No because nothing is, no.
- Steve Rees: is the Fails and Bails song
going to be released in time for Christmas number one?
- Don't know, we're still recording it.
- Yeah, we're still working on that.
(terrible vocalising)
- Hacks and--
- Yeah, it is hacks and--
- Fails and bails.
- Forgot the words.
- Thomas Ashcroft: do I need a torque wrench?
- I've never used one.
- There you go, there's your answer.
No, because we've never used one.
- I have never used a torque wrench.
I just go with, like, tight.
- And then, clicks, and you know it's good.
- You need a torque wrench.
Jamie Hammond: I have a Cyclocross bike,
can I use it on a green down hill trail?
- Yes.
- Probably.
- Yes, you can.
- Susee Sriram: is it possible
to do a bunny hop on a fat bike?
- Yes. - Yes.
- Well, didn't look at it like that but yes you can.
- Kekhrie Shuya: is it a good idea
to do a 20 foot drop on a hardtail?
- I've done one.
Not really.
- It's not a good idea is it?
- No, the teeth missing in my head
would suggest it aint a great idea.
- Is that one you did on the beach
and left the shoulder exposed?
- Yeah, and I chinned the saddle.
20 foot drops are a long way down.
If you're going in on a nice steep landing
that's not too bad.
- Or a beach?
- A beach that's flat, that will stop you dead, no.
Definitely not.
That was a good quick fire, Neil.
That was good.
- Good questions, thank you very much.
- I don't think you should be allowed
to choose the questions anymore.
No.
Well, thanks for sending in your questions to Ask@GMBN.com
#ASKGMBN and remember comment down below.
Been a great Ask this week.
Talk about bunny hops.
Could we throw these guys to some bunny hops?
- Bunny hop, fat bike world record, over here.
- Yes and, over here,
a video on how to help you do a bunny hop.
- How to learn it.
Don't forget to click on the old globe here to subscribe.
It's right in my way actually.
And give some thumbs.
- Got some swag as well if you check out GMBN store
some black (crosstalk) t-shirts.
It's reflective in the dark.
- Thumbs up for the glow in the dark.
- Make it go dark.
- Yeah, make it go dark.
- Make it go dark.
- Aiden, make it do dark.
- Can you make it go dark, Aiden.
There you go.
(mumbling)
There you go.
Look at that.
Wow.